In an ironic twist of fate, newly confirmed WA One Nation Senator Peter Georgiou is in hospital with the vaccine-preventable disease measles.
A week after Pauline Hanson’s apparent anti-vaccination sentiments, she posted a photo in hospital with Mr Georgiou after he contracted the disease in Bali.
“Isn’t it ironic,” Senator Hanson wrote on Facebook.
“Our new Western Australian senator has caught measles in Bali after I caught foot in mouth earlier this week.”
The photo comes in the wake of the Prime Minister urging states and territory governments to ban unvaccinated children from childcare centres.
Although vaccination rates have been improving, Mr Turnbull thinks there should be more.
“We believe we can take it further than that — this has got to be a concerted national effort by all governments to ensure all our children can be vaccinated. No jab, no pay, no play.”
Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt emphasised the government’s role in the upkeep of preventable diseases to Channel Nine.
“It matters because it’s protecting children and against mumps and measles and shingles and whooping cough and conditions that can lead to agony or, as we see, real tragedies,” he said.
“It’s our duty as a government to try to protect every child, and there should be no barrier to any parent adopting this measure … if we don’t do this we put innocent children, beautiful children, at risk.”
Mr Georgiou was announced as One Nation’s fourth senator after his brother-in-law Rod Culleton’s was ruled invalid by the High Court because he had a larceny conviction at the time of the election.
Despite being projected to do well in the WA elections, the minor party’s preference deal with the defeated Liberal government is believed to have hurt both parties’ chances.
Currently, 67.3% of the votes have been counted and One Nation has so far failed to secure any lower house seats.
Senator Hanson remains confident that her party will secure three seats in the upper house when the counts are entirely voted.
The Liberal party faced a historic defeat in the election, with a predicted 19 seats compared to the ALP’s predicted 40.
